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Attitudinal loyalty, behavioural loyalty and social media: An introspection

Kerrie Hawkins, Independent Analyst - Social Media, Dubai, UAE Prakash Vel, University of Wollongong in Dubai, UAE*

The advent of social media in early 2000, though largely used as an interface among individuals to build, share opinions and establish relationships, also has its implications for marketing in business. Social media has been sufficiently used as an important tool to acquire new customers. However, its role in retaining existing customers and enhancing loyalty requires a deeper exploration from a theoretical and empirical standpoint. The concept of ‘loyalty’ looked at from a behavioural and an attitudinal perspective requires a focussed analysis in terms of its sources and dimensions to discuss the influence of social media on the same. This paper conducts a critical analysis of the two types of customer loyalty, namely, attitudinal and behavioural loyalty, and discusses the influence of social media on them. Out of the analysis, it emerges that social media has more likelihood of influencing attitudinal loyalty than behavioural loyalty, however it may not be loyalty-generating in its own right.

Keywords Attitudinal loyalty, Behavioural loyalty, Social media

Introduction

Social media has seen enormous growth over the last few years. Although academic research of user statistics is virtually non-existent, self-proclaimed statistics are available through numerous sources and at the very least provide an overall picture of the state of the social media environment. With that in mind, Facebook in January 2009 had registered 175 million active users (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010, p. 59), and in early 2011 this number is said to have increased to 630 million (Ray, 2011). Twitter, on the other hand, has

*Correspondence details and biographies for the authors are located at the end of the article.

The Marketing Review, 2013, Vol. 13, No. 2, pp. 125-141

http://dx.doi.org/10.1362/146934713X13699019904605

ISSN1469-347X print / ISSN 1472-1384 online ©Westburn Publishers Ltd.

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reported active users of between 140 and 225 million worldwide (Arthur, 2012) since its launch in July 2006, depending on the source.

In light of these statistics, and others like it, social media has become a key factor in marketing and business decisions, and in particular, its role in the success of a brand, product or service is increasing in its prominence (Mangold & Faulds, 2009). While usage of social media is not a part of all marketing plans, there are many arguments and discussions for and against its usage in the marketing of products and services.

One notable area of discussion in marketing pertains to how social media can be used to generate customer loyalty, or if it indeed can be. This is done by looking at these two distinct areas, customer loyalty and social media, and assessing how social media fits into the loyalty generation process.

This paper takes a detailed look into how loyalty is created in the offline and online environments, the types of loyalty that exist, what drives the development of loyalty (loyalty drivers), and whether, and to what extent, social media is able to also support these drivers. The two types of loyalty taken for analysis are attitudinal and behavioural, being the two basic types of customer loyalty (Czepiel & Gimore, 1987).

This paper is not a work to evaluate social media; rather it is a work to critique both social media and loyalty, and to discuss its role in generating the latter.

The complexity behind understanding and interpreting ‘loyalty’

Loyalty is hard to define, or more accurately, there are many types of ‘loyalty’ that may exist for an individual product, service or brand. These range from shallow loyalty to deep brand loyalty at a psychological level. So when attempting to ‘create customer loyalty’, the process employed is important. Taking a standpoint from an attitudinal view, ‘attitudinal loyalty’ is a deep desire to maintain a relationship with a particular supplier, product, or brand (Czepiel & Gimore, 1987). Attitudinal loyalty also infers “the consumer’s predisposition towards a brand as a function of psychological processes. This

includes attitudinal preference and commitment towards the brand” (Jacoby & Chestnut, 1978).

The basis on which a customer chooses to maintain this relationship is a major driver of loyalty. It could be because the brand is better than others in its class, or is as good as others. It could be because it offers the best prices, the best product range, or has stores in the most convenient locations. It could be because moving to another supplier is difficult (high switching costs). These are all possible contributors to a desire to maintain an on-going relationship. With attitudinal loyalty, the customer is emotionally attached, such as in the case of products such as mobile phones or automobiles, for example. Hence attitudinal loyalty has its own significant role to play in a customer’s purchasing choice.

From a behavioural view, ‘behavioural loyalty’ is defined as repeat patronage (Czepiel & Gimore, 1987). A customer may also engage in repeat patronage for reasons of convenience, better service, same service, or high switching costs. However, this does not necessarily signify an emotional attachment with the brand or service provider, as it would do with attitudinal

loyalty. While repeat patronage is considered a type of loyalty, whether this is sufficient to consider the customer ‘loyal’ is a moot point.

Further, (Brown, 1952) classified loyalty into four categories: (a) undivided loyalty, (b) divided loyalty, (c) unstable loyalty, and (d) no loyalty (Brown, 1952). Undivided loyalty is a customer who only shops with one service provider for a particular product. With divided loyalty, the customer uses multiple suppliers or products. Unstable loyalty is where shifts arise from defection (East, Harris, Lomax, Willson & Hammond, 1998). And no loyalty is where a customer shows no loyal behaviour towards any particular brand or product. These definitions expand on the previously mentioned definitions, wherein, they look at the level of attitudinal and behaviour actions that lead to the level of loyalty.

Lipstein (1959) and Kuehn (1962) took the definition of loyalty as being the probability of product re-purchase (on the surface, behavioural loyalty), or the likelihood that a customer will re-purchase a particular product or service. Depending on how this probability is determined, this may be misleading in terms of representing actual loyalty. In deriving probability from transactional data it is possible to identify trends and propensity. However, this won’t take account of the reasons why a customer is repeat purchasing (whether due to emotional attachment or convenience, for example).

Day (1969) and Jacoby and Chestnut (1978) accurately noted that these measures of loyalty do not delve far enough into the reasons for loyalty. Attitudinal loyalty is more relevant in terms of understanding consumer motivations and ensuring that an intense loyalty exists, which, they say, is important when competition emerges or when service levels drop, as a business would have a higher chance of holding onto these customers than those with purely behaviourally loyal customers.

The above analysis leads to a natural enquiry on the roles of attitudinal and behavioural loyalty in the realm of consumer decision making processes. It would be beneficial at this point to look at the different sources of these two types of loyalty to gain an understanding, in general, of their respective roles in achieving commitment to a brand.

The sources of loyalty

Lee, Lee and Feick (2001) and Oliver (1999) noted several studies have shown that to create loyalty, a product or service provider needs to “delight” the customer and to deliver superior value. On the surface, these are perhaps behavioural loyalty drivers and the question is whether they are compelling enough to generate attitudinal loyalty. Delighting the customer and providing superior value and service are surely a given standard of business in a time of such high competition.

Delighting the customer can come from any number of methods, and is a prominent feature of most world-class loyalty programs. Surprise and delight tactics (i.e., to do something for the customer that both surprises and delights them) serve to create a favourable brand experience for customers by tapping their emotional responses. On the one hand, this creates favourable impressions of the brand and may positively influence their propensity to repeat purchase (behavioural loyalty), however, may not

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be enough to create attitudinal loyalty (Parasuraman & Grewal, 2000). In addition, superior customer service may not be strong enough on its own to prevent a customer from defecting if more choices or better competitors become available.

A number of researchers have cited switching costs as a driver of loyalty (Fornell, 1992; Lee et al., 2001; Oliver, 1999), which is particularly well used in service industries such as telecoms and utilities to tie in customers with contractual obligations. The cost in time, money, or effort is often enough to hold a customer’s patronage even in the absence of superior service or delight. However, this would only be considered as behavioural loyalty in that it incites repeat purchase.

Value and satisfaction are also cited as drivers of loyalty. Three variables that can generate satisfaction and value are; quality customer services, performing the service correctly, and differentiation (Nelson, 1996). Customer service and correct customer service are basic expectations. Product differentiation, on the other hand, is where value comes from. Customers will keep returning to a brand or product, and even go out of their way to get there, if there is a difference between this product and that of a competitor. This has potential to produce attitudinal loyalty because the customer appreciates the product for what it can uniquely provide, and also behavioural loyalty because they will continually purchase it until a suitable substitute comes along. This raises the question of not just building attitudinal loyalty, but also how to maintain it in such a competitive, global marketplace. Losing differentiation may lose a fickle customer’s loyalty.

Looking at satisfaction as a driver in more detail, some research explains it as a cumulative effect of service transactions over time leading to an overall satisfying experience (Bitner & Hubbert, 1994), but also notes that satisfied customers are not enough. To generate long-term and substantial loyalty, a business must strive for extremely satisfied customers. This will work to prevent defection if one or more of the satisfaction-driving elements are removed from the relationship, such as service or value. It is also noted that satisfaction does not equal loyalty (Bowen & Shiang-Lih, 2001); it merely creates an effective environment from which loyalty can develop. So, it is possible to have a customer who is satisfied yet not loyal, and loyal but not satisfied.

A further driver is the real or perceived investment that a supplier is making in the customer-supplier relationship and the level of loyalty a customer shows. Studies have shown that the bigger the perceived investment, the stronger the behavioural loyalty (De Wulf, Oderkerken-Schroeder & Iacobucci, 2001). This is perhaps an indication of a customer’s desire to be noticed and respected both inside and outside of a transaction activity.

Thus, the above discussions bring out five drivers of repeat purchase or behavioural loyalty, namely: value, satisfaction, high switching costs, delighting the customer and investment in the relationship. However, it seems inconclusive in terms of deeper loyalty. What else needs to be added to these drivers to create loyalty?

An emotional bond with a brand goes beyond these five basic drivers. These set the scene for building emotional attachment; however, psychological change needs to occur in order to build an emotional

Figure 1 Loyalty drivers create an emotional bond leading to customer loyalty

attachment. Attachment theory states that individuals can develop emotional attachments to consumer entities such as brands, just as they do to another individual (Park & Macinnis, 2006). This connection creates attitudinal loyalty (Park, Macinnis & Priester, 2006, p. 17). The individual identifies with the brand and finds meaning with it outside of the day-to-day product usage and transactional situation.

How is this achieved? If we can surmise that functional activities of a service provider (the loyalty drivers of delighting the customer, creating value, investing in the relationship, and implementing high switching costs), build behavioural loyalty, coupled with creating an emotional bond which can lead to attitudinal loyalty, how can these drivers then be used to create that emotional bond?

Over time, and in the presence of consistently provided loyalty drivers, trust and satisfaction should build as the relationship between consumer and service provider lengthens and the creation of an emotional bond develops. As the emotional bond develops, so does the possibility of customer loyalty, as illustrated in Figure 1. Given the previous discussion on switching costs, this particular driver has been treated separately as shown in Figure 1, because although it may create behavioural loyalty, its effectiveness in generating trust and satisfaction would be questionable.

Developing loyalty is hard to achieve

Even with an understanding that trust and satisfaction are key to generating loyalty, the process is not so straightforward. Gaining the loyalty of customers is reliant on an investment in the relationship, whether this is through a formalised program or providing unparalleled behind-the-scenes service that consistently delivers on the key loyalty drivers.

Learning to understand the customer, through a combination of customer data, preferences and attitudes towards the brand, would assist in developing and maintaining loyalty. True attitudinal loyalty will depend

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on the company’s ability to convert repeat patronage into brand devotion through any of the aspects discussed earlier, and this is what will come at a cost to the business and it is not always easy to achieve.

Loyalty, and indeed company-wide CRM initiatives, requires top-level buy-in in order to succeed, as well as the active participation of many other departments in the organisation. Many loyalty initiatives fail because these critical factors are not in place (Nguyen, Sherif & Newby, 2007).

The difficulty in developing and maintaining customer loyalty leads many into a discussion on how brands can maximise their likelihood of success and what strategies and innovations offer marketers the tools they need. Further, the impact of loyalty on profitability should be understood in order to know the most effective loyalty-generation route to pursue.

Loyalty and profitability

Given the discussion on the two types of loyalty it is also important to understand the differences in profits generated by each. This will provide some insight into why one type of loyalty may be preferred over the other. Looking at the short term, studies show that retaining just 5% of customers can increase profits by as much as 125%, and that these profits come from the reduction in costs that is associated with retention versus new customer acquisition (Reichheld & Sasser, 1990).

So, what could be the differences in profits generated by attitudinal and behavioural loyalty? To help answer this, it should be understood that retention rates will be affected more with behavioural loyalty than with attitudinal as these customers are likely to be more susceptible to easy switching should new competition emerge or after a particularly bad customer service experience (Reichheld & Sasser, 1990). Attitudinal loyalists, on the other hand, can more easily forgive bad experiences and are less swayed by new competition. It light of this, it makes sense that they would bring far greater long term profits and their lifetime value would be by far more valuable to the business.

A business should understand if they are seeking long-term or shortterm profits and if they intend to continually seek out new customers who purchase on a surface level, or look for long-term profits delivered through brand loyalists. The answer may largely depend on the business itself, the products and the type of competition. A “Dollar Shop” in a crowded tourist attraction is likely to be selling the same cheap souvenirs as many others in the same area. Their target market is likely to be tourists, and at best seasonal tourists. Generating long-term loyalty and brand devotion is unlikely, most likely not financially feasible, and probably not a high-priority business objective. What is important is that many customers transact and frequency is a ‘nice-to-have’.

On the other hand, taking the example of a dealer of an automobile brand like Mercedes, the dealer will have a very high investment in repeat purchase. Customers are interested in long-term brand loyalty that is driven by product differentiation, the emotions created by association with the product, the service provided before, during and after the sale, and the respect and admiration they feel as a result of their purchase. For the dealer,

he will rely on a certain level of repeat purchase as a percentage of their sales and profits, and therefore repeat customers are high priority. The cost of gaining new Mercedes customers is far higher than for the Dollar Shop. It is far more important that here loyalty is attitudinal and not just behavioural, in order to sustain the repeat purchases in the face of competition.

Another area looked at is research into market share and how loyalty contributes to this. Traditionally, market share is viewed as being derived through aggressive sales and marketing strategies which casts the net as wide as possible to reach and acquire as many customers as possible (Rust & Zahorik, 1993, p. 195). So how can loyalty contribute to building market share? Generating loyalty is not about acquiring customers, however, if positive word of mouth is generated by loyal customers, this can in turn influence potential customers to trial the product, hence increasing market share. Behavioural loyalty is unlikely to have this same effect as these customers aren’t necessarily advocates who will ‘spread the word’. In this regard, attitudinal loyalty may produce better market share than behavioural loyalty.

It is important to note, however, that an increase in market share could inadvertently lead to a decrease in loyalty as the company begins servicing its new market share and broadening its offering and scope, resulting in the loss of focus on its core activities that attracted customers in the first place (Anderson, Fornell & Lehmann, 1994).

Given the discussion points above, it would be necessary to look at loyalty, and all its facets, in light of the online environment since all the analysis done hitherto has been only on the offline environment. Differences in behaviours, attitudes and business-side processes may have an impact on the way in which a brand strives for loyalty in each of these environments.

Online and offline loyalty

A number of different theories have emerged in relation to purchase behaviour and these can provide some insight into the differences between offline and online environments with respect to customer loyalty.

The Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) states that human beings make rational decisions based on the information available to them, and the best immediate determinant of a person’s behaviour is their intent - which is the cognitive representation of a readiness to perform a given behaviour (Kim, Ferrin & Rao, 2009). This was further expanded upon in the online environment with the Web-Trust model (McKnight , Choudhury & Kacmar, 2002, p. 300), where trusting beliefs of a web vendor led to trusting intentions and trust-related behaviour. Furthering this is the Valence model whereby consumers seek to maximise net valance by balancing a product’s positive and negative attributes (Kim et al., 2009).

These three models were combined to infer that if the initial experience was satisfactory then the consumer will be more likely to continue transacting. However, ensuring satisfaction may not always be within the control of the business. Studies have shown that the impact of satisfaction on loyalty in an online environment is moderated by specific variables at both an individual and a company level, such as inertia, convenience, purchase size, trust, and

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perceived value (Anderson & Srinivasan, 2003, p. 124). Service providers need to pay attention to what they can influence (trust and perceived value) but should also keep in mind the individual-level variables. Although these cannot be influenced as such by the business, they will have a significant impact on whether the customer is attitudinally loyal or behaviourally loyal.

Research shows that the convenience of online shopping tends to lead to repeat purchases online more so than offline. And because the customer has made a decision to choose a particular supplier out of the many that are available, online loyalty can often be higher than offline loyalty as the customer may therefore take some of the responsibility for the experience received when making a purchase (Shankar, Smith & Rangaswamy, 2003). It has also been demonstrated that a positive relationship exists between online purchase value and loyalty in that customers who are more involved financially are likely to be more emotionally involved (attitudinal loyalty) with a brand than lower-value purchasers (Anderson & Srinivasan, 2003).

Based on the above insights, the online shopping environment may support the development of both behavioural and attitudinal loyalty more so than the offline environment. The same factors appear to be present, hence it is as necessary in online as in offline - trust and satisfaction must be built in order for loyalty to develop.

The internet, and in particular social media, has fundamentally changed the way consumers around the globe interrelate and how they engage with brands. This discussion on loyalty would not be complete without looking more specifically at this influence of social media on customer loyalty.

Social media, social networking and loyalty

Social Media and Social Networking Sites (SNS) are currently a prominent feature in both applied and academic research, particularly in regard to brand and product marketing. Social Media is a web-based platform that allows users to create profiles and share personal information. They can connect with others through their profile and share information, knowledge, experiences, pictures and music. The connections between profiles (users) grow exponentially, creating communities of individuals who share common interests, family and friendships (Boyd & Ellison, 2007, p. 211). Examples include Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Myspace.

Of interest is social media’s ability to build further on the one-to-one aspect of direct marketing to create a two-way communications stream that solicits positive and negative feedback, and allows customers to become more involved in the brand’s public image (Harnack, 2012). It also acts as a facility for content generation and exchange, and places the control and the distribution of this content with the consumer (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010), rather than in the hands of the brands.

The fact that social media supports this type of two-way interaction may be a support channel for the development of loyalty. As seen earlier, the drivers of loyalty include delighting the customer, higher switching costs, satisfaction in the relationship, and customers’ perceptions of the investment that the brand is making in the relationship. If social media is able to deliver

on these drivers and forge strong two-way relationships, these relationships could in return contribute towards the generation of loyalty.

Target audience

Noting the earlier statement that academic statistics are not readily available, industry reports do indicate that by the end of 2011, Facebook alone had over 800 million users, Twitter had 225 million accounts, and social media in general had 2.4 billion accounts worldwide (Bennett, 2012). Demographically, Facebook users show a distribution of between 10 and 17% across the age range of 18 to 54, showing the generational switch to a wider spread of age groups (Ad Age, 2011). In addition, male and female usage is consistent across social networks with a relatively even split (Online Marketing Trends, 2011).

In summary, a full range of age groups can be targeted through social media across a broad range of countries, with a roughly equal split between male and female users. The vast spread of population that is currently engaging with social media demonstrates the reach that this medium affords the marketer. However, further discussion is needed to understand the interaction of this population with social media and how this has an influence on generating loyalty.

Underlying characteristics of social media

Social media mirrors reality by allowing users to behave in a similar manner to that in the offline environment. Friendships and connections are formed on the basis of mutual interest, and relationships are formed and built upon through sharing and communications (Hamilton, 2010, p. 4). This is of interest to the marketer as it strengthens the ability to build advocacy around the brand through word of mouth and the visual alignment of users to the brand through public association.

Further, it allows for faster and deeper dissemination of information, and encourages ease of communications. A business’s objectives can potentially be met faster and at a lower cost. Importantly, social media facilitates communication which aids the development of relationships and keeps the brand ‘top of mind’.

The concept of self-grouping is also of interest to product or service providers as this provides a unique segmentation opportunity. The uniqueness comes from “self” grouping, where users place themselves into groups of relevance with peers, such as niche interest groups. This also has the benefit of strengthening the prospect of word of mouth and advocacy significantly (Hamilton, 2010).

The word of mouth afforded by social media supplements traditional marketing in the generation of awareness and product or service trial. A key difference between social media word of mouth and traditional word of mouth lies in: a) the ability to instigate a word of mouth campaign easily and quickly (such as viral marketing) and b) the speed at which word of mouth can spread through thousands of networks and online communities.

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Similarly, advocacy in the online environment supports this business objective by providing a much more visible association between an individual and a brand. The strength here is that the association is much more wide-ranging than in the offline environment, hence the same objective can be achieved at a much faster rate online.

How relevant social media is to the loyalty objectives of a business in light of other alternatives, such as traditional loyalty forms, such as loyalty or CRM programmes, and indeed the existing channels used to create loyalty, has still to be analysed. In particular, a look at how social media can address the loyalty drivers is important to understand the relevance of this medium vis-a-vis traditional loyalty mechanisms.

The relevance of social media to loyalty generation process

Despite the existing lack of clarity on the role of social media and its impact on loyalty drivers, there is much debate about the relevance of social media to loyalty efforts and objectives. Although social media may provide a new and more direct channel of reaching and potentially influencing consumers, there is discussion about its suitability as a channel - i.e., does it offer the business something new and beneficial that provides a return on investment and contributes towards the brand’s development and the meeting of business and marketing objectives? Importantly - is it relevant in the loyalty generation process?

To understand this, a look into consumer usage of social media in respect to brand communication is required. Although limited academic research is available from which to draw on, significant industry-based reports can provide some useful insights.

According to industry reports, there are three main reasons why consumers associate themselves with brands online: a) to receive special promotions, product information, and news; b) to demonstrate to their peers their connection with the brand; and c) to communicate directly to companies online instead of through the traditional methods of face to face or a call centre. This shows that as a marketing channel, it has relevance from a functional perspective in that it can deliver messages to the consumer in a faster and more cost effective method than many traditional forms (Cone Communications, 2010).

However, the role of social media in emotional brand interaction and loyalty generation needs to be established. Attitudinal loyalty, as discussed in earlier sections, is the emotional desire to maintain a relationship with a brand, over and above their transactional requirement. To build this, we have seen the need to create satisfaction and trust through delight, value, and relationship investment.

By its nature, social media doesn’t necessarily provide an online shopping experience from which trust and satisfaction can be stimulated. However, for users to choose to associate themselves with the brand and to publically display their affection or to instigate a communication through a posting or comment, a desire to maintain a relationship does seems apparent. Since social media is a channel for sharing content and communicating, this surely opens up opportunities to build relationships and hence loyalty.